From The Times Dispatch, February 18, 1914. By Thomas Lomax Hunter.

A mud-hole in our road I know
And every year I’ve watched it grow.
It used to be a small affair,
That we, by exercising care,
Could, with but little trouble pass.
That was before ’twas “worked,” alas!
They cut some pieces of pine bough
And threw them headlong in the slough.
On this they piled a lot of clay
And, well contented, went away.
The clay quite quickly turned to mud.
The naked pine sticks soon up stood,
In sharp and threatening array,
Like some old fossil vertebrae.
They plowed and dug about its marge,
Which did its compass much enlarge.
Thus “worked” the mud-hole grew so wide
We could not pass on either side.
But like our old friend, Dr. Foster,
We reached our middle when we crossed her.
Now as this mud-hole larger grew
’Twas quite a source of revenue
To those who had, with proper skill,
So nursed and tended it until
It needed patching every day,
If travel still would go that way.
Moral: If you will but bestow
The proper work, you can, I know,
Make e’en a mud-hole thrive and grow.